take your answer off the air...

Talker's MagazineThe quirky talk radio trade mag. Check the Talk Radio Research Project- it's not very scientific, but places on the top 15 talkers list (scroll down to Talk Radio Audiences By Size)) are as hotly contested as Emmys (and mean just about as much).

The AdvocateNo, not THAT Advocate... it's the Northwest Progressive Institute's Official Blog.

Media MattersDocumentation of right-wing media in video, audio and text.

Orcinushome of David Neiwert, freelance investigative journalist and author who writes extensively about far-right hate groups

Hominid Views"People, politics, science, and whatnot"
Darryl is a statistician who fights imperialism with empiricism, gives good links and wry commentary.

Jesus' General An 11 on the Manly Scale of Absolute Gender, a 12 on the Heavenly Scale of the 10 Commandments and a 6 on the earthly scale of the Immaculately Groomed.

Irrational Public Radio "informs, challenges, soothes and/or berates, and does so with a pleasing vocal cadence and unmatched enunciation. When you listen to IPR, integrity washes over you like lava, with the pleasing familiarity of a medium-roast coffee and a sensible muffin."

The Moderate VoiceThe voice of reason in the age of Obama, and the politics of the far-middle.

News Hounds Dogged dogging of Fox News by a team who seems to watch every minute of the cable channel so you don't have to.

HistoryLinkFun to read and free encyclopedia of Washington State history. Founded by the late Walt Crowley, it's an indispensable tool and entertainment source for history wonks and surfers alike.

right-wing blogs we like

The Reagan WingHearin lies the real heart of Washington State Republicans. Doug Parris runs this red-meat social conservative group site which bars no holds when it comes to saying who they are and who they're not; what they believe and what they don't; who their friends are and where the rest of the Republicans can go. Well-written, and flaming.

May 30, 2011

As is traditional on Memorial Day, for BlatherWatch, we choose to remember the Union soldiers, the incredibly brave and longsuffering troops who won the Civil War against the pro-slavery, secessionists.

It was America's deadliest and bloodiest conflict, with nearly 1,100,000 casualties and more than 620,000 lives. Despite some in the south are still fighting that war, in retrospect, the what-might-have-beens of a rebel victory are unthinkable.

Southerners still get teary when talking about the fallen Gray; they still wear and raise the rebel flag like it's honorable, and patriotic.

So we'd like to take the day to remember the heroes who freed the slaves, and saved the Union.

(photo: Union Army soldier on his release from Andersonville prison in May, 1865. After the war, Henry Wirz, the prison's commandant, was tried for war crimes by a military commission and executed. Wikipedia).

May 27, 2011

But KUOW couldn't ignore the Cliff Mass flap in the end, so they sic-ed veteran reporter Deb Wang on the story. She talked to a Poynter Institute ethic consultant and called in a special editor from outside the KUOW newsroom. Here's Wang from the news dep't Facebook page talking about tackling the story that was sticky-wicket to report at best.

(photo: Deborah Wang)

I’ve been a reporter for a long time, but this is the first time I’ve ever covered my own organization. It’s a tricky assignment and fraught with difficulties. The potential for conflict of interest is an obvious one. The first call I made was to Kelly McBride, an expert on journalism ethics at the Poynter Institute. She gave me a rundown of best practices for how to cover your own organization: 1) stay independent, 2) use your best journalistic judgment, 3) strive to serve your audience and not your organization, 4) work with an outside editor, and 5) communicate clearly with your audience how you covered the story. That advice, and in particular point #3, stayed in my head as I reported this. A couple of the people I interviewed expressed doubts about my ability to report on the issue fairly. I tried very, very hard to be fair and balanced, and also to tell a good story. To edit the story, we turned to Kate Concannon. She is a former Western Bureau Chief for NPR and now is a freelance editor, with no connection to KUOW.

Gotta say, seen through the porcelain eye of a good reporter, KUOW's position is pretty solid. Listen or read a transcript of Wang's back-strainingly fair piece here.

(Couldn't help being reminded of how different public radio's journalistic standards are than KIROFM's, as displayed in this story)

Weatherwise, no problema, man: We can google that up in an instant... or maybe we could be like George Carlin's Hippy Dippy Weatherman: "Weather forecast for tonight: dark. Continued dark overnight, with widely scattered light by morning."

May 25, 2011

Sparky (not her real name) is a longtime BlatherWatch commenter. In real life she's a an educator somewhere in the South Sound area. She and her fellow teacher/administrators took a hit this week from legislators because, as she writes, "we are being asked to sacrifice because wealthier people in our state will not..."

We began week 4 of testing this week. In the beginning, it was the Measurement of Student Progress, which is the new name for the Washington Assessment of Student Learning (WASL). That covered grades 3-6, with some of the older students taking portions of the test online.

Then we moved into MAPS test, a generic test of Reading, Language usage and Math, and is a district sponsored test. The kids are catatonic, we are all trying very hard to do our best...and today, the Legislature cut my pay.

I almost had to laugh. Every year there seems to be another test..WASL, MSP, MAPS, DIBELS, reading assessments that go with the basal reader, math assessments that go with the math series. Some of these tests reach down into Kindergarten because you are never too young to waste instruction time on testing!

Our district has not been quite as hard hit as others around us--about 17 teachers have lost their positions due to cuts in funding. Larger districts are looking at losing between 100 and 200 teachers each. This means the classes will be even more crowded, kids will get less individualized attention...but hey----we still have to run the gamut of testing. Next year, the MAPS test will be given 3 times a year, and will eventually encompass grades 1-5.

Our school is small, and my library is the largest space we have that is suitable for testing. I have a small 16 station computer lab, and two carts of 15 laptops each. These are set up all around the library and classes come and go to test each student for most of each day.

This means I have had to close the library for student use, and my support services in math and reading -- I teach several small groups a day so we can get those groups smaller -- have been cancelled. As I said above, next year we will be doing this 3 times. That means for 9-12 weeks my teaching space will be closed. I am one of the proctors for the test because of my expertise on computers, so going out to the classrooms to teach is not an option. It means that instead of teaching Reading and Math, the teachers are standing in my library supervising and proctoring the tests right along with me.

Then, tonight, I got this email from our WEA president:

The bad news:

- $2.5 billion total CUT in K-12 and higher education funding over the next two years - 1.9 percent pay cut for education support professionals and certificated staff, totaling $179 million (Previous budgets proposed a 3 percent pay cut.) - Voter-approved I-728 funding for smaller class sizes suspended - Voter-approved I-732 funding for educator COLAs suspended - More students next fall, and fewer education support professionals and teachers - Repeal of the age 66 COLA for Plan 1 retirees - Skyrocketing college tuition Washington has the third-most-crowded class sizes in the country, and this budget will cram even more kids into overcrowded classrooms. This budget cuts funding for more than 1,300 teaching and support staff jobs. There will be more kids and fewer staff in our schools this fall.

We are also taking an additional pay cut in my district because they have eliminated the 3 Learning Improvement Days. Those LID days were paid days when kids did not have school, and we used them to analyze data (from all those TESTS) and work to strengthen and improve our instruction. Because of that, my total pay cut is closer to 4%.

It also cuts pay for all K-12 and higher education employees -- and once again suspends our voter-approved cost-of-living adjustments.

Once the budget passes, these cuts become a local issue for education associations and school boards. Voters, legislators, parents and the media need to know how these cuts hurt students and families in their communities. Bargainers across the state will have to negotiate the specific impact of these cuts on WEA members and students. It's not going to be easy or pleasant.

This comes about because of a man named Tim Eyman, the perennial anti-tax initiative petitioner who was successful in getting his latest tax issue on the ballot, and the citizens of Washington State approved it. Because of Eyman's most recent initiative, legislators were unable to raise the revenue needed to fully fund public education. They needed a two-thirds vote to raise revenue, which was impossible with the current Legislature.

Those of us who teach do not do this job to become rich. But it is the height of something that we are being asked to sacrifice because wealthier people in our state will not. Meanwhile, more kids are stuffed into classes and the idea is being floated that our evaluations should be tied to those never ending TESTS.

Not that we don't love The Stranger and all it stands for, it's just that airing KUOW's dirty drawers there, of all places, is a little untoward for public radio- the last place KUOW would want this all to be kicked around.

But untoward, we guess, was the idea. (and, we guess, neither Crosscut nor The Times would take it).

Real radio people just fade off when they're fired to reappear when they find another job... but not our Cliff!

He be cuttin' off his nose and pissing where he eats and being all right and rights-demanding and everything like you'd do if you were a freshman with a microphone.

May 22, 2011

In the beginning KUOW created "Cliff Mass, Media Weather Man," and in the end, pulled the plug on that which they created.

(photo: Steve Scher, Facebook)

Steve Scher giveth and Steve Scher taketh away.

The Weekday (KUOW m-f, 9a-12p) producers and Scher hate waves, wave-makers, and those they consider self-promoters (who are about anyone trying to better themselves outside the non-profit sector). Mass stepped into all those boxes, and into the poo.

You gotta wonder how he lasted as long as he did.

When we said KUOW doesn't like controversy, we weren't kidding.

(photo: Cliff Mass, Seattle Metropolitan)

Unlike commercial stations who watch the ratings minutely and fire on-air talent and blow up programs more or less routinely, KUOW rarely fires anyone, and when they do it's like an academic firing- in slow motion with lots of multisyllabic harrumphings and process.

KVI am 570 KHz Visit the burnt-out husk of one of the seminal right-wing talkers in all the land. Here's where once trilled the reactionary tones of Rush Limbaugh, John Carlson, Kirby Wilbur, Mike Siegel, Peter Weissbach, Floyd Brown, Dinky Donkey, and Bryan Suits.
Now it's Top 40 hits from the '60's & '70's aimed at that diminishing crowd who still remembers them and can still hear.

KTTH am 770 KHzRight wing home of local, and a whole bunch of syndicated righties such as Glennn Beck, Rush Limbaugh, Michael Medved, Sean Hannity, Laura Ingraham, Lars Larsony, and for an hour a day: live & local David Boze.